National Ballet of Canada’s “Giselle” @ SPAC, 7/17/2013

The National Ballet of Canada brought the audience at Saratoga Performing Arts Center to its feet Wednesday night with its fully realized production of the romantic story ballet “Giselle.”

A good-sized audience braved the heat to witness the SPAC premiere of this gem of the early classical ballet canon. The two-act ballet, which debuted in 1841 in Paris, was first staged by the Canadian troupe in 1970, with choreography and Peter Wright after the original work of Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot and Marius Petipa. It is set to music by Adolphe Adam, revised for this production by Joseph Horovitz.

Compared to other story ballets, “Giselle” is more psychological as it explores themes of love, social class, betrayal, despair, forgiveness and redemption. The pantomime-driven Act I unfolds as an idealized vision of life, set at harvest time in medieval German village. Peasant girl Giselle has won the heart of the noble-born Albrecht, who disguises himself and lives among the villagers.

Greta Hodgkinson brings a lighter than air quality to her portrayal of Giselle, the shy, unspoiled beauty caught up in the first blush of love. Peasants fill the stage, pedal-stepping in pinwheel formations, passing off baskets filled with the bounty of the harvest. Villager Hilarion (Piotr Stanczyk), who fancies Giselle for himself, begins to suspect something is amiss with the handsome stranger in their midst. When a party of nobles arrives, all is revealed, not just the true identity of Albrecht (Guillaume Cote), but also that he is betrothed to another and can never be with Giselle.

This is when things get interesting.

Giselle is plunged into madness, tearing around the stage, unhinged, unable to gain her balance when all she thought was true turns out to be false. The villagers and even the nobles who had once embraced her back away and keep their distance. Hodgkinson was effective, if reserved, in this tormented dance. The act comes to a close when Giselle succumbs, somewhat ambiguously, either to her grief or a self-inflicted wound from Albrecht’s sword.

This is a preamble to the heart of the ballet, in Act II, when the mortal men, Albrecht and Hilarion, are set upon by a throng of Wilis, spectral creatures, all beautiful women, once betrayed, now doomed to wander the earth seeking revenge upon all hapless men who cross their paths. To a modern, post feminist audience, this may seem, well, ridiculous – even so, it is gorgeously realized in this production. As one of the first ballets in history to feature women dancing en pointe, it’s a showcase for the steps and positions that are the foundation of classical ballet.

There are star turns for Heather Ogden as Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, and an exquisitely ethereal Hodgkinson, plus powerful solos for Cote and Stanczyk. However, it is the Wilis, 20 strong and in diaphanous tulle skirts, who create some of the enduring images for which this ballet is known.

They cross the stage in interwoven lines, barely hopping on one foot, with a leg extended in arabesque, or bouree en masse, appearing like billowy clouds floating above the stage.